DROdiohttp://danielodio.com
A Sanctuary for Founders and Entrepreneursen-usFri, 09 Dec 2016 23:17:36 +0000http://sett.comSett RSS GeneratorConvertible Notes -- Discussing the Valuation Cap numbershttp://danielodio.com/community/convertible-notes-discussing-the-valuation-cap-numbers
Awhile back, I turned Martin's awesome valuation cap spreadsheet on convertible note valuation cap numbers into a Google doc, and I've since gotten a lot of "edit" access requests for it from entrepreneurs. Here's how to make your very own copy that you can edit privately:

BTW, if you're looking into convertible notes, you might also like this post on optimizing an AngelList profile. I've got a bunch of other entrepreneur-friendly posts as well; just drop me a note in the comments and tell me what you're looking for. A few of my faves:

Earlier this year, I attended an Accenture event for Silicon Valley founders discussing social within the enterprise. I just realized I hadn't posted my video of the event.

Here's the transcript: Kelly Demspki, partner at Accenture, talks about
social within the Fortune 2000

Speaker 1: To put this a little bit in context, if you
think about Accenture and our clients, most of you probably know, we’re a
global company. We have clients in about 120 countries. We’re about $25.5
billion in revenue. We essentially work in management consulting, which is my
area, technology services and outsourcing as well as business process
outsourcing. So our clients are essentially the Forbes Global 2000, plus about
another thousand very large enterprises and government agencies and
organizations. So that’s the context if you think about the kinds of issues we
think are relevant to those kinds of organizations.

Kelly’s a partner [inaudible] San Jose
office. In addition to working on the vision, he leads our enterprise social
media innovation center in San Jose. [Inaudible] He’s worked a lot on the
vision. Kelly, I’m going to turn it over to you. Thanks.

[Audience applauds]

Kelly Demspki: Good evening. Yeah, Tim took all my jokes
[inaudible] so if you’re tweeting or [inaudible] person without any slides at
all, and if I sometimes refer to this [inaudible].

[Audience laughs]

So as Tim said, I’m Kelly Demspki. I
work out at San Jose. I spent around 14 years over in our lab in Chicago and
about three years in our lab in the south of France, and about a year ago, I
moved here which is interesting because this is obviously the heart of
[inaudible]. But, basically, my role within Accenture is to lead our technology
lab here in San Jose or here in Silicon Valley and a lot of time both in San
Francisco and in San Jose. And I also lead an R&D group, called Digital
Experiences, which focuses on a lot on technologies that customers touch in one
way or the other. I spend a lot of time on social media and related topics.

And so today I’ll talk about the vision,
and I’ll basically walk through the vision in a slightly different order than
what you see in the materials. Basically, I’ll walk us down the staff, talk a
little bit about customer experience, talk a little bit about the data side of
things and then finish off with a brief point about security. One thing I’ll
say real quick is that this is normally about an hour or two worth of
presentation, and [inaudible] ‘til I’m done so please be nice.

[Audience laughs]

No, I’m going to try to cover everything
in about 15 minutes, but also, what’s interesting about this is, speaking to a
few of you and looking through the [inaudible] materials, before this talk, I’m
realizing that a lot of the things that I may talk about are things that will
not be terribly surprising to some of you. But I look at the technology vision
really as serving two functions. One is we have a number of clients for whom
the material that I’m going to talk about is very, very new in some cases. But
the flipside is this is an interesting [inaudible] for people who this is not
new for, it’s always good to remind people that there are other people in the
world who find this very novel and may need help understanding.

I spoke to someone just the other day, a
fairly very senior person in the company who basically asked me if social media
was all just rumors and stuff and why bother [inaudible].

[Audience laughs]

So just with that in
mind –

[Someone in the
audience says something. Audience laughs]

The first topic we’ll be talking about
in the technology vision is context-free services, and this actually came about
as a way to talk about mobility because, it’s interesting, the last year
[inaudible] in 2011, we also did not have the mobility topic. But if you ask
people [inaudible] mobility as one of the topics. And the reason we didn’t do
that is because we thought technology has really moved past the point
[inaudible]. Being mobile is no big deal, right? We all have iPhones and iPads.

[Someone in the
audience says something]

But the active mobility itself, being
mobile, is a technology [inaudible] wasn’t terribly novel from a technology
perspective. But what was happening was basically a maturation of [inaudible]
services, maturation of how people use mobile devices and other devices toward
things like [inaudible] or for consumers. But also you have the same thing
where someone who has an iPad, what some people refer to as a mobile device,
but yet in my house there’s an iPad that never leaves the room anymore. So how
do you deal with that?

So we [inaudible] as a set of services
that had a good sense of what context you were in, what you wanted, who you
are, how we could best serve you at any given moment based on all those
factors. And so one of the things that my group has been working on in the labs
is using the fact that you have a very, very colorful multi-sensor computer in
your pocket that is also tied to things like your social network to better deliver
those services to you. Let me give you an idea.

So when we talk about context-free
services and knowing who you are and what you need, think of it this way: your
phone in your pocket is tied to your social network. How many people are on
Facebook? Just to help me understand the audience a bit.

[Audience raises their
hands]

Okay, so for those of you on Facebook,
Facebook is really the first time that your profile is online. It’s the first
time that you are you online. Think about it. For a number of years, I was
kelly.dempski@gmail.com but it could have just been [inaudible]
craigsmith@gmail.com, captainyahoo@gmail.com, whatever else, right? There was
no sense of who I was and what I did, my history and so on. Now, with Facebook,
you see that I’m part of Accenture, you see my educational history, my work
history, my interests, my friends, etc., etc., etc. And that’s tied in with a
lot of the services that you may use on a mobile device. Now, if I walk into a
store, if I have an app that knows I’m in the store and it knows that I am
someone from Accenture, it can start to show me products that have been bought
by people basically in my area, maybe my income range. It seems that would be
much more colorful than the same one that’s in the personal mail [inaudible].

The other thing too is that you can
start to tie the mobile device in with things like my online browsing history
and say, “Oh, Kelly was online at steward.com. He looked at these things.” Now,
[inaudible] about what I may want to try to sell him when he’s in the store.
This is not rocket science but imagine how far this is above most people’s
in-store experience.

Now, go one step further and say, “Well,
I know who Kelly is. I know he’s in store. I know what he’s browsed for.” And
now I can do crazy things, like saying, well, [inaudible] influential, right?
So maybe I want to give him a deal. [inaudible] and tell everybody else
[inaudible]. And then you go one step further than that and say, “I know the
guy is influential and I know I want to give him a deal.” Well, there are a lot
of things that you can … well, let’s do [inaudible] 10%. There’s only so far
you can go with that, but another thing you can say is, “Well, Kelly has an
Xbox.” So if I’m at a store like Best Buy, there’s racks of music, there’s
racks of Xbox games, there’s racks of whatever that are basically sitting
dormant. So offer me a free Xbox game, offer me a free heavy metal CD, offer me
whatever else. You’re going to get rid of basically dormant inventory and
you’re going to give me maybe the equivalent of 15% to 20% off. [Inaudible]
There are really kinds of things you can do about bringing a bunch of different
sources [inaudible] together and serve me any given content in my mobile
device. Of course there are equal stories for things like iPad where, while I’m
watching TV in the living room, serve me better based on that [inaudible].

And then finally, [inaudible] about
business to consumer. Imagine the case of a field worker in the field and being
able to say, okay, I have this person [inaudible] this piece of machinery, he’s
supposed to be here at this point. He has a history of fixing [inaudible] what
sorts of training, what sorts of connections, what sorts of feedback
[inaudible]. So anytime you can register context and [inaudible] you’re better
off.

The second topic is on social-driven IT,
and this is something that I spend a lot of my time [inaudible], and the fact
that there are many, many different IT systems that now can and should take
advantage of various [inaudible]. I’ll give you another example. There’s a
person I was talking to the other day and he said, again as I mentioned, “Well,
social media, isn’t this just [inaudible] talking about stuff and gossip and
rumors and … Who cares? Why would you read this? Isn’t this just a fad?”

]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:09:46 +0000http://danielodio.com/kelly-dempski-accentureI'm thinking about hosting an under 25 freelancer meetup in San Francisco? anyone interested?http://danielodio.com/community/1060940
I'm thinking about hosting a under 25 freelancer meetup in San Francisco, would anyone be interested or know anyone that might be interested?

I want it to be structured so that everyone who attends will be discussing in depth about their freelancing and actually engage in conversations to help eachother and talk about their freelancing experiences.

]]>Thu, 27 Nov 2014 07:36:47 +0000http://danielodio.com/community/1042917AngelList Recuriting Pro Tipshttp://danielodio.com/community/angellist-recuriting-pro-tips
I believe that AngelList is going to be a HUGE resource for companies to use for recruiting. So I'm going to start leaving some pro-tips here as I learn & navigate the AngelList system. I'll also invite the AL folks to comment directly on this post.

Today, from what I can tell, there are 16,834 candidates on AngelList Talent:

I expect that number to balloon substantially over the coming 12 months.

Stay tuned for pro tips in the comments below. Also feel free to post your own, as well as questions on how we use AngelList at ShareThis for recruiting.

NOTE: The AL Talent system is changing literally daily -- amazing how much development they're doing on it. So many of these things will almost certainly be out of date a few months down the road.

]]>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 08:30:08 +0000http://danielodio.com/community/587804The Contour+2: A deeply flawed yet awesome camerahttp://danielodio.com/community/the-contour-2-a-deeply-flawed-yet-awesome-camera
The new Contour+2 camera is like a fine Italian sports car... built in the 1980's, before they got their quality control process figured out. Awesome and stunning, yet deeply flawed and aggravating.
Here's my initial review from the brief time I've had the camera. I'm n]]>

The new Contour+2 camera is like a fine Italian sports car... built in the 1980's, before they got their quality control process figured out. Awesome and stunning, yet deeply flawed and aggravating.

Here's my initial review from the brief time I've had the camera. I'm not yet sure if I'll be keeping it or returning it. I really want to keep it, but I'm not sure I can deal with its flaws.

The camera records in 720p or 1080p, and the picture quality is great. It has an external mic jack (although sadly, it's only 2.5mm mono). Its profile is sexy (much more so than the GoPro Hero cameras). I can use my iPhone as a viewfinder, and to start & stop recording, which is awesome. It comes with a waterproof camera case.

The Terrible:

The camera is inconsistent in many ways. Here are a few of them:

Complete data loss: By far the biggest issue I have with the camera is that if I record for an extended period while also charging the camera (90 minutes or more, it seems) the camera will lock up, and not stop recording. In fact, there's no way to stop recording except to pull the battery out. This has the effect of corrupting the micro SD card and erasing all the video that was taken. This already happened to me at one important event -- I lost the keynote and many interviews from this event. I haven't yet found a work-around to this problem, and Contour support isn't very stellar (they moderate their forum, so even just posting issues is a super painful process).

For example, here's a pic where I've turned the recording switch off, but you can see the front recording light is still on:

The only way to get the camera to stop recording was to remove the battery. This corrupted the data card completely.

Charging: The camera is inconsistent in the way it charges. For example, In this picture I'm using a PowerGen block to charge the camera. See the red light on the top of the camera? That means it's charging.

But if I unplug the USB cable and plug it right back in, the red charging light goes away. About five minutes later, it'll turn back on. Why does it take five minutes? Is it charging in those 5 minutes? I have no idea.

The internal mic is also just terrible. I mean, so horribly bad that it's unusable. And what's with having a 2.5mm mono jack? The folks over at Contour haven't exactly prioritized audio in any way on this camera, which is a shame.

I may return this camera and try the GoPro Hero3 camera out. It's not as elegant of a piece of hardware, but I'm hoping that GoPro may be more advanced in its software and audio prioritization. It's a real shame, though. I really want to keep (and love) this camera.

]]>Sat, 18 May 2013 22:47:58 +0000http://danielodio.com/community/the-contour-2-a-deeply-flawed-yet-awesome-cameraJust landed at SFO: What you should do firsthttp://danielodio.com/community/just-landed-at-sfo-what-you-should-do-first

I just had someone whom I originally met in DC come by our office here in SF. He's out here trying to get a new startup off the ground.

I told him I'd send a few ideas his way to help him figure out how to take advantage of being in SF. Instead of sending him a private email, I figure it'd be great to get it going as a public conversation where other entrepreneurs can contribute as well.

So here's the question: If you were new to SF with a startup idea, what would you do first?

Here's my quick initial list:

1) Create a demo or prototype. People in the Valley won't take you seriously unless you have something to show them. The litmus test: It's interesting enough that the person doesn't feel like they've seen it all before.

2) Find experts in your field to believe in you: Getting some social proof in the Valley is super important. Pick whomever is at the top of their game in whatever field they're in, and find a way to meet them, and show them the demo you made. Get them interested in what you're doing. And if you can't get them interested in what you're doing, then that probably means you need to iterate more on step #1.

If you're not sure how to get access to whichever Subject Matter Expert it is that you want to meet, then you need to start learning to think creatively. Hint: Use the networks (like LinkedIn & Facebook) of people you know to get intros to the SMEs you want to meet. People will usually take an intro if it's from someone they know.

And ideally, you can get one or more of them to become an advisor in your startup, maybe for a quarter point of equity or so.

3) Apply to Y Combinator, 500 Startups and all the other accelerator programs. It's worth doing, for a couple of reasons: First off, you'll get invaluable feedback from incredibly smart people in the field. And secondly, you might actually get in. There are a lot of places you can learn about how to optimize your chances for getting into YC. While you're at it, read all of Paul Graham's essays. They're incredibly good.

4) Go to Meetups. There are tons of meetups in the Bay area about every conceivable topic. It's a great place to meet people who are also doing interesting things in whatever field you're in.

Other than that, the best thing you can do is to actually build something interesting and get a group of users to be passionate about it. That type of traction trumps any amount of talk.

Once you feel that you're ready to start looking for funding, you can read a bunch of articles I have on leveraging AngelList.

And lastly, pat yourself on the back. Few people have the gumption to pick up their lives in another city and make a blind move out to the Valley. Welcome, and good luck.

]]>Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:14:38 +0000http://danielodio.com/community/just-landed-at-sfo-what-you-should-do-firstWhat We're Looking For When Angel Investinghttp://danielodio.com/what-were-looking-for-when-angel-investing
My wife and I have recently started doing some angel investing (you can see what startups we've invested in on my AngelList profile). If I sent you to this blog post, it's probably because you thought we might be interested in investing in your startup.

Here's a guide on what we're looking for:

As I wrote in this blog post, we consider angel investing to be just about the riskiest thing one can do with one's capital. So we are very, very careful about how we deploy our cash to invest in startups.

For us to justify an investment in a startup, we have to believe that our cash has a greater potential return (and of not being lost completely) than any other alternative -- and since we're very bullish on ETFs for equity growth, and LendingClub for putting cash to work to get monthly distributions, that's a pretty high bar for us, because the reality is that most startup bets will fail.

Some angel investors mitigate this risk by investing in a large number of startups, and this is an approach we've discussed, and may pursue at one point. If & when we do this, we'll be much more likely to be more aggressive with angel investments.

But for now, the main thing we need to see is a lot of traction, a team that knows how to create, and quickly, and a huge addressable market. Here's how our two public investments to date met those criteria:

AngelList is the marketplace for angel investing, and the macro trend is that crowdfunding will become more public and more accessible to ordinary Americans. No company is as well positioned as AngelList to capitalize on that trend, and we think it's going to be huge.

AltSchool is reimagining how K-8 children learn in a really smart way. The parents I talk to that are familiar with AltSchool are very passionate about their model. It's an incredible team with very strong traction and a trillion dollar market, and they raised a $33MM round from some of the best VCs in the industry, including FoundersFund and Andreessen Horowitz shortly after we invested.

If you think you have a startup of similar caliber, we'd love to hear about it.

]]>Mon, 21 Apr 2014 01:58:28 +0000http://danielodio.com/what-were-looking-for-when-angel-investingCheating with Macro Photoshttp://danielodio.com/community/cheating-with-macro-photos
My wife loves to take macro photos. But the macro lens we would get is $679. So we tried to cheat by getting a $9 Macro Extension Tube Set. But it turns out you can't cheat your way to great photos.
There were several problems. The main one was that the lens that comes]]>

There were several problems. The main one was that the lens that comes with the GX1 is a power lens, but the tubes don't allow for any power to flow to the camera. This means that the camera thinks there's no lens, but more importantly, you can't focus the lens, so it only works at a fixed point.

I could live with that, if it took great macro pics at that point. But it doesn't. The pictures are blurry. Here's the best shot I could get with the tube:

If anyone has any idea on how to get great macro pictures with a Four Thirds lens that doesn't cost over $600, I'd love to hear about it.